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JR 111 JP O R T 



ICELANDIC COMMITTEE 

FROM WISCONSIN 



ON 



THE CHARACTER AND RESOURCES 



OF 



ALASKA. 




WASHINGTON: 

OOTEENMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1875. 



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REPORT OF THE ICELANDIC COMMITTEE FROM WISCONSIN ON 
THE CHARACTER AND RESOURCES OF ALASKA. 



December 15, 1874. 
To his Excellency Ulysses S. Grant, 

F resident of the United States : 

Sir : The committee of Icelanders, who were deputed by the Ice- 
landers of Wisconsin to examine Alaska, with a view to a settlement 
therein, beg to submit to your Excellency the following report : 

We, first of all, would thank your Excellency with all our hearts for 
the kindness you have shown the Icelanders in granting their request, 
that they might be afforded facilities by your Government for making 
this examination. We offer you thanks in behalf of all the country-men 
of ours who deputed us to go. Icelanders will not forget your Excellen- 
cy's kindness. 

After a voyage of twenty-four days we sighted Kadiak Island on 
October 9, of which the tops of the mountains were covered with last 
year's snow, and appeared to us much like the mountains of Iceland, 
especially on the northern and eastern coasts of Iceland. Proceeding 
toward the mainland, up Cook's Inlet, we saw great forests on the west- 
ern shore of the inlet. On the mountains here we saw comparatively 
much less snow ; and there is also very little lowland on that side of the 
inlet. Farther up, and approaching Saint Nicholas, we saw a fine-look- 
ing country, covered with forests on both sides of the inlet, but with 
more lowlands on the eastern than on the western side. 

On October 15 we went on shore at Fort Nicholas, and were kindly 
received by the agent in charge of the Government buildings, who also 
gave us useful information, he being an old resident. Here salmon are 
plenty in the rivers and lakes, and they are also very large. The agent 
told us that once he had in one hour caught sixty-three salmon, of which 
the biggest weighed ninety-five pounds, but the average weight was 
fifty-two and one-quarter pounds. Others told us the same. One day 
we went to the Kakno Eiver, which flows south of Fort Nicholas, to a 
spot where it had last summer overflowed its banks, and there had, con- 
sequently, been x)ooIs formed in the low places, and afterward the pools 
had dried np, and heaps of dead salmon lay there so that it was half 
up to our knees wading through them. Several of the ship's officers 
also saw this. Winter here begins in the middle of November and ends 
in the middle of March, A Itussian, who had lived in Alaska some 
twenty years, told us that cabbages, potatoes, and other garden vegeta- 
bles were the only things that had been sown here ; but he said that no 
one had ever tried to sow anything else. He told us that about forty 
miles south there was a settlement called Noodshick, (^lunina,) where 
rye was raised. The first morning we were on shore the thermometer 
stood, at half i)ast six o'clock, eighteen degrees above zero, Fahrenheit. 

We explored first in an easterly direction ; we passed through rolling 
and hilly country, covered with thick forests ; the soil was everywhere 
mossy, with very little grass, but much heather and many bushes. The 
trees are high, from seventy to eighty feet, and two feet in diameter; 
they are mostly spruce. Farther from the coast we found swamps; 
we think these could be easily drained, and they would then become 
good frrass-land. 



Afterward we weut in a northerly direction from Fort Nicholas. We 
found there a drier soil, more grass, and forests of larger trees. We 
found in several places grass breast-high. On that day we came across 
much land of which the soil was composed of vegetable matter, being- 
very rich and fertile, and from one to one and one-half feet deep ; be- 
neath this comes a layer of black mold from six inches to a foot deep, 
and slightly mixed with fine sand. Next below this is a layer of red 
loam, which seems to be impregnated with iron, and the water which 
runs through it has a strong taste of iron. Under this layer is sand, 
and under the sand a sort of sandstone, beneath which comes clay. We 
could observe these layers along the beach, and on the banks of the 
streams. In very many places, indeed, almost everywhere along the 
beach, are layers of coal and of surturhrand. 

As far as we can judge, the quality of the land seems best nearest the 
coast, and again, according to what we could learn from others, on the 
other side of the marshes and nearest to the mountains, where the grass 
is said to grow from five to six feet high. On the western side of the 
inlet there is much less lowland, and we all think we have good reason 
to believe that the land is drier and better on that side in many places; 
but as there was no one on board who knew the landing-places there, 
we were not able to go over. 

It is said there are no fish in the inlet itself, and we think the cause 
is that so many rivers pour into the inlet, some of them glacial torrents, 
which carry with them sand and loam ; and that, as the bottom of the 
inlet is muddy, the water becomes turbid in stormy weather, and this 
drives the fish away. Salmon are very plenty in all the rivers and lakes 
during the season. Game was scarce in the immediate neighborhood 
of Fort Nicholas, excepting wild geese, of which there was an abundance. 
It is said there is a great deal of game in the mountains east of the low- 
lands ; bears, foxes, land-otters, ermine, marten, and sable, and the 
like. 

Our general impression of Cook's Inlet is that, although w^e would 
earnestly recommend our countrymen to settle there later, it will not be 
best adapted to a colonization (lirect from Iceland, because it would be 
more difficult to begin there than on Kadiak. The chief means of sub- 
sistence for the settlers would for the first year necessarily be salmon ; 
and, in order to make the most of the salmon-fishing, the settler should 
be there in April or May, and this would be next to impossible if one 
came direct from Iceland. For a second reason, although there is no 
doubt that stock-raising can succeed w^ell in' this portion of Alaska 
after a time, still, the soil here needs previous prejmration in order to 
support large herds. As the summer in that portion is said to be very 
warm, (112'^ Fahrenheit have been reached,) and as the raiu is compar- 
atively much less abundant north of the sixtieth parallel, it can hardly 
be doubted that agriculture will be profitable here. The winter is often 
very cold, (the temperature falls sometimes to 40° below zero, Fahrenheit.) 
and the snow falls six or seven feet deep in the low country, and twelve 
or fourteen feet on the mountains. 

But should Icelanders settle at Kadiak Island, for example, to begin 
with, we think it not only likely, but quite certain, that an oft'shoot of 
the colony would find it advantageous to settle from there at Cook's 
Inlet. 

The country about Cook's Inlet is also not so well known, and needs 
to be explored in order for us to become acquainted with its natural re- 
sources, and this will be done as scon as Kadiak shall be settled by a 
civilized people. 



After a three ('ays' voyage from Cook's Inlet, we arrived, on the twenty- 
fourth of October, at Kadiak Island. The custom-house officer received 
us kindly, and oft'ered us house-room, as also for the two of us who 
were to remain all winter at Saint Paul. 

We explored the peninsula which runs northeast from Saint Paul, 
and also the country north of the peninsula, round Devil's Bay, where 
we found the grouiid mostly covered with excellent ajid heavy timber, 
especially spruce and pine, and, where there was an open space, there was 
an abundance of grass, high, and of good quality, and the soil was rich. 
There are many lakes ami streams, all full of salmon and different kinds 
of trout, i^ext we examined the mountains in the neighborhood of Saint 
J'aul, and the country on the north of the mountains, about Chiniak 
Bay ; and the mountains are mostly like each other. There is hardly 
any lowland, but the mountains are covered Avith birch-trees and with 
green grass to their summits ; there are no land-slides, and rock is rare. 
We traveled a long way in a westerly direction on the mountains, and 
J(')n Olafsson went farther northwest until he came to Marmot Bay. 
The most inviting country was there, and excellent pasturage, but the 
forests there Avere smaller than farther south. We visited the islands 
around Saint Paul, and found them nearly all inhabitable. The timber 
on Woody Island is bigger than anj- we have seen in Wisconsin. Goats 
run on the islands without any care being taken of them. The whites 
who have cattle feed them in the winter, but the natives do not feed 
their cattle at all, being too lazy to cut hay for them. 

AVe crossed over Chiniak Bay, and landed on the northern side of Cape 
Greville, where Paul Bjorusou went in a westward direction along the 
bay, but the two others went across the peninsula, and afterward around 
it, in an easterly direction. A large and beautiful grass country was 
there, and some forests. Here we found some wild rye, {eJymns.) 

East of the one hundred and fifty-third meridian, Kadiak Island is 
covered with forests ; but there is hardly any forest to the west of that 
line. Pasturage is said to be excellent all over the island along the 
coast ; but the ui)land is said to be wet and unproductive ; still, there 
is no doubt of there being pasturage for a long way in from the coast, in 
the many valleys leading up from the bays. 

The salmon-fishing at Kadiak is about as good as at Cook's Inlet, ex- 
cept that the salmon are smaller. In a little while the sailors from the 
Portsmouth caught over fifty in one of the rivers, although it was at a 
time out of season, and they got these by catching them with their 
hands, or by striking them on the head with a stick, or by shooting 
them as they leaped out of the water. There is an abundance of cod- 
fish and halibut all the year round ; and we caught any number of them 
without a boat, fishing from the wliarf. We will mention here that the 
Icelanders cure fish better than any other people in Europe. And I, 
Jon (')lafsson, have in Norway hoard merchants who had traded in 
Spain with Icelandic and Norwegian fish, say they could not sell the 
Norwegian article in the market until the Icelandic fish had been sold 
out. ]Many persons in Iceland also well understand the art of smoking 
salmon, and preserving it in tin cans. 

There is considerable game on Kadiak, both birds and other creatures. 
Fur-seal and sea-otter are caught not far from the island. 

There is no navigable river in Kadiak, by reason of rapids ; but many 
of them have suflicient water-power to drive machinery. 

At Woody Island the ice company raises oats; but thej' use them in 
the same manner as frequently is seen in California ; cutting oft" the 
tops and feeding them to the cattle like hay. Thus, not much care is 



taken in raising them ; but still they get almost ripe. Potatoes grow 
and do well, although the natives have not the slightest idea of how 
they should be cultivated ; which goes to show they would thrive ex- 
cellently, if properly cared for. Cabbage and turnips, and the various 
garden vegetables have great success. And, to judge from the soil and 
the climate, there isprinia facie no reason why everything that succeeds 
in Scotland should not succeed in Kadiak. 

Pasture-land is so excellent on Kadiak, and hay-harvest so abundant, 
that our countrymen would here, just as in Iceland, make sheep-breed- 
ing and cattle-raising their chief means of livelihood. The quality of 
the grass is such that the milk and the beef and mutton must be excel- 
lent; and we also had an opportunity to try these at Kadiak. In time, 
the Icelanders would in Alaska bring to the American market these 
articles in great abundance and of good quality. 

When we compare what we have found about Alaska in books, 
especially in Lieutenant Ball's book, with what we have ourselves now 
seen and informed ourselves about, we feel convinced that Ball's descrip- 
tion of that land is correct in all essential matters. Kadiak Island is 
excellently fitted for stock-raising ; the fisheries are abundant all the 
year round ; and there is plenty of timber for fire- wood, for house-build- 
ing, and boat-building everywhere east of the one hundred and fifty- 
third meridian ; and it is only a little distance to the Kenai peninsula, 
where timber suitable for building large ships grows. The island has 
in nearly every respect advantages over Iceland, and the climate, espe- 
cially, is milder in the winter-time without being warmer in summer, 
and summer is a great deal longer than in Iceland. 

We, therefore, do not hesitate to recommend those of our countrymen 
who are minded to emigrate that they come hither if they can, and we 
do this after a minute and conscientious deliberation, in the firm belief 
that it will be for their advantage, as the land seems in every respect 
well adapted to them, and answers completely all our expectations. 

Agriculture is wholly untried here, so that it is not entirely certain 
how^ far the country is adapted thereto ; but this circumstance has for 
the Icelanders, who at home are not accustomed to agriculture, not the 
same importance which it has for people of many other nations, who 
will yet for many years be able to find lands to their taste not yet set- 
tled much farther east. 

We cannot, therefore, do otherwise than express the hope that the 
American Government will do all that lies in its power to encourage 
the immigration of our countrymen to Alaska, as the land seems to 
have been created just for them. In like manner we think that men of 
our race are the best adapted, or perhaps the only men adapted, to 
settle and cultivate that country, and to utilize the natural resources 
with which it is furnished. 

Both for the reasons above stated, and also for other reasons, founded 
not merely on ])hysical advantages, but which we shall not detain your 
excellency in specifying, we are convinced that Alaska will suit our 
countrymen better than any other land on earth. 

We have the honor to be, vour Excellencv's obedient servants, 

JON OLAFSSON, 

(Who also is authorized to subscribe the names of the absent com- 
mitteemen.) 

OLAF (3LAFSS0N. 
PAUL BJORNiSSON. 

New York, December 15, 1874. 



REPOJKT 



ICELANDIC COMMITTEE 

FROM WISCONSIN 



THE CHARA(JTER AND RESOURCES 



ALASKA. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1875. 



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